A new season just came out, and yes, the longer a successful game is out, the more people will purchase and play it. That's always been the case. That doesn't really dispute that it was incredibly popular at launch, it has just gotten more popular.
How about providing a source for your "facts"?
Sorry I forgot to provide the source. Here you go:
"and yes, the longer a successful game is out, the more people will purchase and play it"!
I guess the most played game today is space invaders or tetris then...
Seriously are you people even real?
D4 wasn't a great lunch. It was good but not a huge bang. Probably less than 6 million copies on launch month. Total dev+marketing cost probably is close to 5-600M$ so nearing break even but still far from profits. They started sooner than ever with any other Blizzard with agressive discounts.
4 months after release they were giving 40% off for Battlenet account players together with S2 (this is when I bought it, and still regret it to this day). This didnt help a bit avg users. By mid december they were giving 45% off in Steam for everybody together with the announce launch of season 3 (that also suffered of a similar campaing of news "S3 fixes everything, D4 resurrected, blablabla) Avg players didnt move much. Then this 1st week of may they launched a 50-60% discount offer!
A Blizzard game with less than 1 year of life in Steam at 50% and in Bnet with coupon a 60% off. That has never happened. Games that sell good dont need such agressive discounts to bring a few players in 10 months after release.
This time, the offer, the moment, and the PR buying helped and took the game back to the numbers of release because they were low numbers. Game never sold huge and player retention was really bad.
Did you only read the headline or something?
"Blizzard has revealed in its latest financial earnings report that Overwatch 2’s launch back in October 2022 has been a massive success, with the game since delivering the highest quarterly figures in the history of the franchise. "
It's the highest in the history of the Overwatch franchise..
That's not the same as saying that Diablo 4 is the fastest selling game across all of Blizzards titles.
Did you want to try again with providing some facts to assert your point? or just more poorly worded headlines that don't reflect the actual content of the articles?
The $99 pack includes the base game, the expansion, and extra optional cosmetics along with a token for the battle pass.
Not exactly sure why you would try to present the most expensive package, as the price of just the expansion pack. If you don't like the game, that's fine, but there is no reason to be misleading to try and manufacture outrage over it.
The game has been out for a year already. and the Expansion doesn't come out for another 4 months. What time frame for an expansion pack do you think is reasonable? because 16 months isn't what I would consider to be "so close to release"
Because it is them who use deceptive, manipulative tactics?
It is ok to like a thing, but let's keep to the facts.
What are you even talking about? what did I say that wasn't factual?
You will need to put in a bit more effort to make excuses for supporting people making false statements about a game you don't like.
I personally couldn't care less about the cosmetics. When I play, which is rare, I just equip the season 1 stuff I unlocked because I was too stubborn to not play a game I paid for. It still holds up and frankly looks better than the S4 stuff.
Anyway, problem with the game is you hit a big wall of boring at level 60. At that point you have the gear for a functional build and you're just grinding through levels to unlock your Paragon slots and level your glyphs. That means one thing: grind nightmare dungeons until your eyes bleed. It's so boring. You sit there and look how much each run moves your xp bar and calculate how many more of these it's going to take before you can move to World Tier 4 and just get tired head. Sure people push through. I've always been amazed at the amount of totally boring crap people are willing to tolerate to play a video game. I don't have whatever motivation they do I guess. It's probably because I have a whole list of higher priority things to get done in life than compete on a D4 leaderboard.
Bottom line for me is I've yet to get a level 100 character in this game. It's not that the actual gameplay is that challenging it's that pushing through the boredom is the primary challenge.
I will say the Hellscape setting of Diablo is very appropriate because the game does feel like living some hell inspired torture. They're going to have to make some pretty dramatic changes before I come back.
That's exactly what season 4 has done. New itemization system, uniques drop more often and at lower levels, the grind to 100 is much quicker, hell tides are always going on in different parts of the map, nightmare dungeons are more rewarding with higher glyph xp with a higher chance of getting a unique from the boss. The Pit which is like greater rifts from D3, Andariel, Duriel, and several other bosses with a torment difficulty that has a higher chance of dropping uber uniques, a tempering and masterwork system for upgrading the affixes on items, new legendary effects, new elixers.
I hadn't gotten a character to level 100 until Season 4, and now I have 2 of them. People complained about the pacing, and they listened and have made several great changes. Seems for some it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" mentality towards them.
I have about 600 hours in the game since launch. I played a bunch at launch, skipped season 1, played quite a bit of Season 2, Skipped Season 3, and have been playing Season 4 almost non-stop since it launched because the of the changes listed above.
This is blatantly false.
"Big Number. $666 million. The apt global sales benchmark was crossed by Diablo IV within five days of launch, making the video game Blizzard's fastest-selling title ever"
If you can't provide criticism of the game without making stuff up, then you're just undermining your own credibility.
Liking a thing is ok. Being an apologist(or a hater for that matter) is not. I don't have any special thoughts about D4(the amount of pros and cons is about equal), but to defend shady ActiBlizz practices? TotalBiscuit, Jim Sterling, Angry Joe et al all wrote or spoke about this. How they use very exploitative tactics. Like showing you the most expensive option first(or making it front and center), putting your cursor or tabs in in game stores in interesting places, using very interesting descriptions, cash shop shenanigans etc etc.
So a bunch of people that exploit search engine and video algorithms would know best about exploiting customers in other ways? Makes sense.
You can go to the Diablo 4 website, click pre-purchase, and the platform of choice, and it has a single screen with all the purchase options on it, and what they include, with just the base expansion pack starting on the left, and the most expensive option on the right.
Sure, there has been plenty of valid criticism to be had about previous games and practices by Blizzard, but if that doesn't apply to the current game in question then it's not really relevant to the current discussion, and it certainly doesn't give everyone else a pass to be hypocrites by spreading false and misleading information. I think we should be better than these companies instead of stooping to their level, a lot of the false information being provided by others on here just muddies the water in helping other consumers make good purchasing decisions, and leads to people ignoring valid criticism and feedback.
It's good to be aware and cautious of these things when making purchasing decisions, but in my opinion if it's not applicable to the current product, then you're just trying to justify using your own deceptive, manipulative tactics to sell your ideals and opinions, which undermines the message you are trying to deliver.
I don't care if you like the game or not, entertainment is subjective, the value of a dollar is subjective, what isn't subjective though is commenting on here that the "Expansion is $99" when that's a deceptive representation of the offer to fit into some personal agenda or crusade against a company. It's hypocritical, and does more harm than good.
I'm going to do the smart thing, and wait for a sale. That way they'll have time turning it into something decent, fixing it up. They did a good job with season 4. I hope they keep up the trend.
Edit: I might make an exception, depending on how much content you get for the expansion, and how good it is. I suggest waiting on reviews.
I'm going to do the smart thing, and wait for a sale. That way they'll have time turning it into something decent, fixing it up. They did a good job with season 4. I hope they keep up the trend.
Edit: I might make an exception, depending on how much content you get for the expansion, and how good it is. I suggest waiting on reviews.
But aren't these prices already on the level of a good sale? Let's take the bundle: 70€. The base game is 50€ and expansion is 40€. 70 / 90 = 25% discount. Tbh, I thought it was 60 / 100.
Oh, it seems they reduced the Standard price on Steam? It is now 50€(~60$), not 70€!
$40 is definitely less than I expected from them. And as far as I can tell there is no early access for the more expensive packs. So those are positives.
Personally, I don't care about the campaign or the new class. What I care about are improvements to endgame and itemization and any new systems being added. And before we have that info it's hard to tell if the expansion is anything special.
I care about classes, campaigns etc. It is the lifeblood for me. But I also care about the design(class design in D4 is rather conservative and boring) and balance thereof too.
So they made the main game feel like an empty husk so they could sell expansions so close to release?
Wait what?
Are you guys serious? I mean sure, the game was not that great when they first launch it, but we are on S4 already which is the best yet.
The game breaks record after record on concurrent users on Steam.
But hey! Keep hating.
If you're gonna lie, please pick something hard to disprove. Top all time 40k users. Average till the loot patch wasn't even 10k and after patch it's lucky to break 15k. It's broken no records. Ever. At all.
Lie ?!
Before S4, there were 29k Top All time. That Top 40k you are talking about is 7 days old, aka after the patch.
39,782 all-time peak 7 days ago
Here, document yourself before making you look bad :
The patch (S4) launched 14 May and if you look at the chart, you can see all the borken records.
You welcome.
PS: Where do you see 15k barely, after 14 May ?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
So they made the main game feel like an empty husk so they could sell expansions so close to release?
Wait what?
Are you guys serious? I mean sure, the game was not that great when they first launch it, but we are on S4 already which is the best yet.
The game breaks record after record on concurrent users on Steam.
But hey! Keep hating.
If you're gonna lie, please pick something hard to disprove. Top all time 40k users. Average till the loot patch wasn't even 10k and after patch it's lucky to break 15k. It's broken no records. Ever. At all.
Lie ?!
Before S4, there were 29k Top All time. That Top 40k you are talking about is 7 days old, aka after the patch.
39,782 all-time peak 7 days ago
Here, document yourself before making you look bad :
The patch (S4) launched 14 May and if you look at the chart, you can see all the borken records.
You welcome.
PS: Where do you see 15k barely, after 14 May ?
Diablo 4 isnt only on Steam.
I'm not sure why some are using Steam stats to determine Diablo 4s success or failure as it can be played on consoles, through Battle.Net and on PC Game Pass.
So they made the main game feel like an empty husk so they could sell expansions so close to release?
Wait what?
Are you guys serious? I mean sure, the game was not that great when they first launch it, but we are on S4 already which is the best yet.
The game breaks record after record on concurrent users on Steam.
But hey! Keep hating.
If you're gonna lie, please pick something hard to disprove. Top all time 40k users. Average till the loot patch wasn't even 10k and after patch it's lucky to break 15k. It's broken no records. Ever. At all.
Lie ?!
Before S4, there were 29k Top All time. That Top 40k you are talking about is 7 days old, aka after the patch.
39,782 all-time peak 7 days ago
Here, document yourself before making you look bad :
The patch (S4) launched 14 May and if you look at the chart, you can see all the borken records.
You welcome.
PS: Where do you see 15k barely, after 14 May ?
Diablo 4 isnt only on Steam.
I'm not sure why some are using Steam stats to determine Diablo 4s success or failure as it can be played on consoles, through Battle.Net and on PC Game Pass.
Because they have no clue wtf they are talking about.
The guy didn't even bother to reply anymore, because after he saw he was wrong, I'm sure he was like "....whatever! I'm right anyway".
Yes, Steam is very, very , very small for Blizzard, because most of the players already owned the game in BNet, Consoles, etc.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Comments
I play more games than the majority of people here.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Oh, it seems they reduced the Standard price on Steam? It is now 50€(~60$), not 70€!
Personally, I don't care about the campaign or the new class. What I care about are improvements to endgame and itemization and any new systems being added. And before we have that info it's hard to tell if the expansion is anything special.
Before S4, there were 29k Top All time. That Top 40k you are talking about is 7 days old, aka after the patch.
39,782 all-time peak 7 days ago
Here, document yourself before making you look bad :
https://steamdb.info/app/2344520/charts/#3m
The patch (S4) launched 14 May and if you look at the chart, you can see all the borken records.
You welcome.
PS: Where do you see 15k barely, after 14 May ?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
The guy didn't even bother to reply anymore, because after he saw he was wrong, I'm sure he was like "....whatever! I'm right anyway".
Yes, Steam is very, very , very small for Blizzard, because most of the players already owned the game in BNet, Consoles, etc.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!